The Duke Student Government Judiciary handed down its punishment to the Interfraternity Council Wednesday night for tampering with the March 11 DSG runoff elections.
Although the chief justice and one member of the committee abstained from the vote, the judiciary's 4-0 unanimous decision contains three main points-two of which are directly aimed at IFC, said Trinity junior and Chief Justice Josh Schaffer. The ruling states:
IFC must submit any plan for its involvement in future elections to DSG's election commission no later than 17 days prior to the election. In a public ruling, the election commission will then decide if the plan is permissible.
The judiciary recommended to the administration that IFC's office space be relocated from its current location in the West Union Building. Schaffer said members of administration have informed him that they will support the judiciary's ruling. If so, he added, the group will probably be given space in the Bryan Center behind the Information Desk.
The DSG by-laws should be changed to incorporate the legal definition of tampering and bribery that the judiciary used in its previous ruling.
Last night's punishment comes on the heels of the judiciary's March 24 ruling that the IFC voter turnout contest-in which the fraternity with the highest percentage of voter turnout would receive a refund of its IFC dues-did, in fact, constitute
In explaining the judiciary's decisions, Schaffer emphasized that the group explored a number of options and that it did not want to harm individual students. "Our objective was to narrowly tailor a sanction that punishes IFC without harming individual fraternities or their members," he said. "The judiciary did not want to discourage IFC from participating in a legal manner from future elections."
Although IFC is not a DSG sponsored organization, the two groups do have some financial ties-DSG funds IFC's annual community service project. Additionally, Schaffer said that the administration views DSG as representative of the entire student body including IFC, since IFC is a student group.
Due to a time conflict, IFC president and Trinity junior Eric Weisman was not present at the judiciary hearing.
Schaffer said he e-mailed everyone involved with the hearing-including Weisman, Trinity sophomore and DSG legislator Brent Kaziny, one of the two legislators who filed the original complaint, and members of the judiciary-one week before the meeting regarding the schedule. Schaffer stressed that he would have changed the meeting time in order to allow Weisman to attend, however, Weisman never responded to his e-mails.
To support IFC's perspective, however, a statement from Weisman was slid under the door of the DSG office before the hearing. "The IFC continues to stand behind its voter turnout contest and believes that the judiciary ruled incorrectly when it overturned the unanimous ruling of the election commission," the statement said.
The statement also said that IFC should not be held liable for the contest. "Members of the election commission were well aware of the contest and failed to inform the IFC that it was in violation of any rules," it read. "Furthermore, if what we did was wrong, why was the election not overturned?"
Following the ruling, Weisman reiterated the legality of IFC's actions and welcomed a new forum in which IFC could be exonerated.
"As to the sanction, I do not think that the administration would want to get involved in a matter of campus politics," Weisman said. "However, it would provide us an opportunity to present our case again and finally be vindicated."
During the hearing, Kaziny urged the judiciary to make up for the fact that the election results were upheld. "You can rewrite that mistake tonight by doling out a harsh punishment," he said. Schaffer said that the judiciary decision was not to compensate for any previous mistakes.
Kaziny stressed the importance of this decision in restoring students' confidence in DSG. "I think we've seen a lack of respect for the DSG by-laws" as well as for the judiciary, he said.
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